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Issue is restoration of credibility of Akali Dal and Panthic institutions

 


Issue is restoration of credibility of Akali Dal and Panthic institutions


Ground Zero

Jagtar Singh

 

The atonement letter submitted to Akal Takht chief Jathedar Raghbir Singh on Monday by a section of the senior Shiromani Akali Dal leaders is more than just power struggle in this second oldest political party in the country constituted in 1920 to articulate Sikh aspirations and ambitions.

Some of the signatories include 4-time chief of Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee Bibi Jagir Kaur, Prem Singh Chandumajra, Parminder Singh Dhindsa, Surjit Singh Rakhra, Bhai Manjit Singh, Gurpartap Singh Wadala and Karnail Singh Panjoli.

Shiromani Akali Dal was earlier headed by party stalwart Parkash Singh Badal from 1995 onwards who passed on the baton to his son Sukhbir Singh Badal in 2008. This dynastic succession was unprecedented in the glorious history of this party associated with the most peaceful struggles in India before and after the 1947 partition of the country.

The submission of atonement letter seeking forgiveness for actions under the Akali Dal government headed by Parkash Singh Badal from 2007 to 2017 has only precipitated the deepening crisis that hit the surface finally with the party candidates forfeiting even security deposits in ten of the 13 seats in the recent Lok Sabha elections. The Shiromani Akali Dal landing in latest crisis is not unprecedented.

It is pertinent to mention that the party has been in roller coaster ride since the split in 1999 due to spat between Badal Senior and then Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee president Gurcharan Singh Tohra who represented the parallel power centre in the Akali Dal domain. The party has been hit by the down trend since 2012 Assembly elections and received the worst drubbing when it was reduced to just 3 Assembly seats in 2022 elections. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party, once its alliance partner from 1996 to 2020, got more vote share that the Akali Dal.

At stake is both party credibility and existence rooted in several actions listed by these leaders in the apology letter while confessing that they too were the culprits by keeping mum, if not directly complicit. The main issues listed is withdrawal of police case of blasphemy against Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim, cases related to sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib and appointment of Sumedh Singh Saini as the state police chief as his name was associated with brazen human rights violations in the state. The focus is on four actions and decisions from that period.

The party which for years was known as the voice of the Sikhs now stands rejected by the very people whom it represented over the decades. At least two qualitative transformations can be traced that has landed this party and the Panthic institutions in crisis.

The party shifted its emphasis from Panth to Punjabiat at 75th anniversary conference at Moga in February 1996 as reflected in the speech of Badal Senior and successive thrust on this dimension in the name of amity and communal harmony. This was ideological shift.

The second transformation that was more in the style of functioning was take over of the party by Sukhbir Singh Badal in 2008 from preferred to be CEO thereby reducing the party to a company by way of style of functioning.

In 2007, Sukhbir had earned his reputation of a leader with high management skills after victory in the Assembly elections. This was the era when politics had already been getting transformed into commerce impacting entire political spectrum, not just the Akali Dal.

The leader was hailed so long as he was getting dividends for the shareholders. The leaders who have submitted the apology letter now were then the shareholders.

The company failed in 2017 and went bankrupt in 2022, dashing all hopes of these stakeholders in 2024. The shareholders now demand total overhaul to revive the company.

The first outburst of the Sikhs in particular against the Akali Dal and the Panthic institutions was related to managing exoneration of Ram Rahim from  Akal Takht. It may be mentioned that Hukamnama had been issued from Akal Takht in 2007 directing Sikhs to socially boycott Dera Sacha Sauda followers as pictures of Ram Rahim surfaced copying dress and actions of Guru Gobind Singh, the 10th Sikh Guru. The case against him was withdrawn five days before Assembly elections in 2012. It may be mentioned that the election commission only clears the files sent by the state government. The Akal Takht let off Ram Rahim in September 2015 and the SGPC defended the exoneration by releasing ads in newspapers costing about  Rs. 90 lakh. Here is the case of being complicit. It is on record that the five high priests led by Akal Takht had met at official residence of Parkash Singh Badal before that exoneration.

The sacrilege at Bargari took place in October 2015 after the Bir of Guru Granth Sahib was reported stolen by a gurdwara at Burj Jawahar Singh Wala village near Bargari earlier on June 1.

These are the incidents, including inducting retired director general of police Mohammad Izhar Alam in the Akali Dal, that are part of the letter with these leaders confessing that they kept mum all the while and as such, were also the guilty.

The latter is multilayered and multidimensional, though at the surface it is just an atonement letter.

It puts in the dock not only Sukhbir Singh Badal but also the institution of Akal Takht and the SGPC for being complicit in all these cases of omission and commission. It is for this reason that it is not just an Akali crisis but Panthic crisis.

The problem is that these are not just allegations but statement of facts. Several of these leaders maintain that they had proposed way back in 2022 that the party should seeking apology at Akal Takht for what they term as the misdeeds. The Sikh history is replete with such instances. At times, the Akal Takht took suo motto notice of violation of Panthic value system and the most cited example is that of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. He was summoned by Akal Takht chief Jathedar Akali Phoola Singh and awarded punishment. The Maharaja sat down with bare back to get whip-lashed but was forgiven at the last minute.

The punishment from Akal Takht is by way of service (sewa) whose aim is to make a person humble by ending his/her ego and arrogance.

One of the issues that Akal Takht Jathedar now faces is that of scrutinizing action of this very institution itself along with that of the SGPC. This would trigger several developments and cause major turbulence in the Sikh religio-political domain.

There is another dimension. Going by the past record, such crisis tends to push the Sikh narrative towards far right. In this case, several Akali leaders before going to Amritsar dropped at the residence of Amritpal Singh, MP, to meet his parents in Jallupur Khera village near Beas. It was a courtesy call no doubt but it is the timing that represents the past trends. Amritpal Singh, who won from Khadoor Sahib with the highest margin in Punjab, is presently lodged in Dibrugarh jail under NSA and is perceived to represent hardline.

Would Akal Takht Jathedar now reopen the entire narrative relating to sacrilege thereby going into the role of those in power in the government, the SGPC and the Akal Takht?

The crisis is deep with far reaching implications.

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